phrase@Robert03 Weaken questions are mostly like rebuttals...so when I used to debate most of the time with a rebuttal it would start with a ohrase of dissent. I chose this one and weaken questions have become substantially easier.

This one I genuinely thought was a level 1....

In essence the stimulus goes like this

All reporters know whats been told by agent

If agent told ever detail then no reporter knows more than the other

If they dont know more then no reporter can scoop

Agent did not tell all details ..so some can scoop??

That makes no sense because in sentence 1 it quite literally says all reporters know whats been TOLD by the agent..... lol So they all know the same thing how would they scoop with more knowledge and not scoop with less....

Thats why E is correct

Xavier: I knew they would fail

Miranda : the bank shouldnt have lent any money

Which makes E correct..

Also we do not know if in A they think few people want to sit outside.... it could be the case that miranda thinks that no people want to sit outside ...we just dont knw

I got this one and immediately chose A before looking at the other answer choices. At that point it was POE from there.

With A this is supported by the 2nd sentence, "This always permits MORE realistic planning"

Pause

Now we go to AC A, "In large institutions whose divisions do not function autonomously, planning is not MAXIMALLY realistic"

It is practically saying the same thing . If you can have "More " of something if you convert to functioning automatically then you are not at the maximum.

The other AC I ruled out pretty easily

AC B- There is nowhere we can point to in the stimulus that gives this support. This to me is the throwaway answer

AC C- What disadvantages? does the stimulus talk about disadvantages? dont think so .

AC D- The very last sentence is where this AC could derive some support but the last sentence says "overwhelmed by the details of daily operations ....." They did not say "Overwhemed by the details of MOST daily operations" (this is unsupported )

AC E- the word "always" here messes this up and that is the thing with this question...subtle words are making the answer choices wrong and its banking on you rushing and not reading .

For weaken questions I use the phrase "well actually" before reading off the answers and it helps tremendously ! PRO TIP

This question took the conclusion out of the stimulus and put it right into the AC ...Specifically AC D thats why it was correct. Read it and then say "therefore " and read AC D and you will see why its right .

Did not want to choose A because of how effed up it was but I gave in and chose it just for it to be right ...jeezusss

11/12 ayeee

HECK YA

Oh I just thought I was crazy and lazy for a second. I am like I know i finished it LOL

5/5 bishessss

Initially ruled out B-D had it down to A and E on E I used negate sufficient and that literally was the chain I created at the start. These questions get easier the more you study I swear.

@Mina.G Hey I am tagging you in my explanation. I ended up immediately crossing A off because of the sufficient and necessary mistake and B. Once you see the chain you can see why A is incorrect quickly.

In learning skills here is how I diagrammed this

1. Price for coffee beans increase ----> Coffee shop increase price

2. Coffee Increase Price ---> Selling non coffee or coffee decrease in sales

3. Sell non coffee products---> Decrease overall profitability

4. Avoid decrease in overall profit---> Coffee sales do not decrease

------

Some conditionals we can chain together here:

We know that the price for coffee beans will increase if the price for coffee increases...so lets chain this

Price for coffee beans increases ---> Coffee Shop Increases Price

In our initial assessment, we see the coffee increase is linked to the second set so we can just make those one chain

So now we have

Price for coffee beans increases ---> Coffee Shop Increases Price---> selling non-coffee or coffee sales decrease

Now lets pause :

Based on our premise, we know that if they sell non coffee products, then their overall profit will decrease

So now we have

Price for coffee beans increases ---> Coffee Shop Increases Price---> selling non-coffee (overall decrease in profitability) or coffee sales decrease

Now that we have this, the sentence is still not as clear as we would like it to be. When this happens, we can negate certain premises to make it make sense.

So I am going to negate #4

Avoid decrease in overall profit---> Coffee sales do not decrease

/coffee sales do not decrease ---/ avoid decrease in overall profit

This negation literally says : If coffee sales decrease then we can not avoid a decrease in overall profit

Essentially, Coffee sales decrease = Decrease in profit

Now that we have that we are going to substitute (coffee sales decrease for a decrease in profit just like selling non coffee products)

Price for coffee beans increases ---> Coffee Shop Increases Price---> selling non-coffee (overall decrease in profitability) or coffee sales decrease (overall decrease in profitability)

FINALLY

We now have

Price for coffee beans increases -> Coffee Shop Price Increase -> Decrease in overall Profitability

Now lets look through our answer choices

A. Right off the bat "IF" the decrease in overall profit (Pause) we have established that this is a necessary condition. This is incorrect.

B. Same reason for A

C. Okay this statement is saying if the price it pays for coffee beans continues to increase -> The shops overall profit will decrease (THIS CHAINS CORRECTLY)

D. We do not know what it would take to decrease the proce of coffee beans the STIM does not say so no.

E. The stimulus says nothing about what would be sufficient for coffee sales to increase.

There we have it!

This was not a good way to explain it but the show goes on

Guys do not worry, Most = more than half.. the stem is saying "more than half (most) got B minus or higher" dont over think it. The reason that C is wrong is because it excludes B- and we know nothing about "B" scorers in itself because the stem only mentions B-... just paying attention to verbiage helps .